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Arsene Wenger confirms Arsenal fans worst fear…

Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Olivier Giroud will be the club’s first-choice striker come the start of next season.

Gunners fans have been longing for a top striker to join the club in recent seasons, but the only arrival to challenge up front has been Danny Welbeck, who has just been ruled out for the next nine months.

The former Man United forward joined in September 2014, but has already succumbed to three injuries spanning a minimum of two months each, and is yet to fulfil his full potential. Welbeck did hit the ground running on returning from his last injury, but his recent absence has confirmed that he suffers from the Arsenal injury curse, proving that more options are needed.

Me, along with many other fans, had been hopeful of at least one of Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud would be leaving the club, with a big-named striker coming into the fold, but the Arsenal manager’s recent comments have poured water on the idea, in the case of the latter at least.

When asked if Giroud would start next season as Arsenal’s No 1 striker, Wenger said: “Yes.

“I believe that Danny Welbeck being out now for a long, long time we will be on the road to look for one more striker.

“After that it’s down to compete. Olivier has strong and weak moments so we have to deal with that.

“He is a bit unbelievable – he is in cycles. He scores in spells and then sometimes he scores less.”

I’m hoping that I’m reading this wrong, and Wenger is telling us he will sign a new star, who will challenge Giroud for a starting role, but unfortunately we know the thinking that goes on behind the scenes, and a potential new star will come in with the hope of becoming a top striker…

Please tell me I’m wrong… And Wenger is just keeping his cards close to his chest like he usually does? Is he trying to put us off the scent, or is he preparing us JUST IN CASE he cant persuade a proven goalscorer to come?

Iv been disappointed in reading some of Wengers comments lately. First he says Walcott will be here next season, goes on to then tell us how Theo is deadly when everyone’s fit?. Then I heard him speak about finding top quality not being as easy as people might think. Now he says Giroud is no1 and we are aiming to plug the gap from Welbeck injury. I don’t get it, weren’t we looking for a quality striker before this injury?. I had a feeling those three goals spelled bad news. This is Girouds top tally, but three goals against villa at this time of season is the equivalent of scoring during preseason. It’s kinda infuriating, players under-performing for the umpteenth time, well hey, lets give them a nice big fat raise.

I hope he’s just saying this and he fully expects the next striker to come in and displace him. I hope he’s saying this because of the likelihood of the new player needing time to settle. I’m a bit annoyed now. I was looking forward to seeing who comes in, was hoping for some surprise departures too. Now I just feel very underwhelmed.

We have three players leaving: Arteta, Rosicky, Flamini (I presume), plus 1 plater out for the whole season. So the minimum we need is 4 new recruits to be where we were this season when we were found well short. To avoid doing worse than this season we must get 4 players. Since one of the ones we have lost (Welbeck) is a striker we MUST buy a striker to stand still. Since Wenger seems unable to recruit a world class striker, he would have to get one, not necessarily WC, nonetheless a genuine striker. Somebody (almost anybody) who knows where the goal is and has the only intention of shooting direct at the goal – hopefully not directly at the goalie. That is better than not having any striker the whole season – that would be madness! Wenger said he recognizes that he made mistakes this season. I didn’t believe that he meant that. I called it his usual “Wenger-speak” – saying the opposite of what he means. There is no reason to take what he says anything other than “Wenger-speak” if he fails this summer to get at least one out-and-out GENUINE striker and 3 other players!

The trouble with what you have just said is that Wenger does say what he means now!!!
Last summer he said there were no “available” players that were better than what he had, this basically meant that he was’nt looking to shake any players loose from thier clubs, and thus it was proved that he only brought in Cech while still boasting of a 75 million warchest!!!
With the cash flowing in from the BT deal next season it SHOULD mean that he is looing to spend ALL of the proposed war chest this season, however we all know this wont be the case.
If Giroud is staying as No1 then we all know the player he brings in up front will be an understaudy and therefore NOT a world class srtriker it’ll be a cheap understudy and they wont cost much.
It strikes me that Wenger is obsessed with finding and developing another Tierry Henry so that he can sit back and bask in the glory of such a find, however football has changed and the method and talent aquisition skills he introduced are mainly the reason for this, the only thing that really talks in the transfer market now is money and Wenger just WONT spend.
getting second spot was great on the day but I fear that it will irrevocably damage any chance we may have had of major change for next season.
What really galls me is that Wenger gets paid 8 million a year to manage a side and yet even the lowest paid bin man who is an arsenal fan can see that OG and Theo are NOT nor will they EVER be up to scratch un yet Wenger persisits against all the evidence because he so desperately wants to prove the world wrong about either or both of the afore mentioned.
I was never convinced that Wenger should really go until last summer and now Im absolutly convinced that nothing can change until the mentality of the manager changes and that wont change until wenger has gone, Im afraid to say.
Walcott is sh!t and so too is Giroud and unless we bring in a top notch world class striker we wont win a damn thing….plus we will loose the one players who gives his all and that alexis sanchez and that WILL be a tragedy of major proportions.
Ill say it loud and ill say it proud
WENGER OUT !!!!

In that statement he said He will bring in another striker and who will be number 1 will be down to competition. Yes Giroud is number striker because that is the only one we have at the moment. He can not count on a striker who is not here to be our number striker. Number 1 and 2 or 3 will be known once the squad for next season has been registered

Is it a surprise! We’ve been without a world class striker for four years now, so why would Wenger change that now? We all thought Wenger would get a top quality striker to compliment, arguably the world’s greatest play-maker, but here we are three years later and still, it’s a big fat no!

We’ll probably be told that Arsenal cannot compete with Leicester now in the transfer market! Haha!! Can’t wait for the excuses when that transfer window shuts.

Hahaha 😂
What did you expect? …When Giroud goes and scores a hat trick on the final day of the season, against bottom of the league Villa… I bet Wenger was rubbing his hands in delight!
😂
The money has always been available since the day we signed Ozil and Whether the money is spent or not! Is all down to Wenger and nothing to do with Kroenke or the Board,Yet, the wenger fan’s will deny that and continue to blame the silent man with the stuffed hamster on his head.

Judging by the way wenger has performed this season,
I would say that he is being totally honest regarding Giroud being our number one Striker for next season and I doubt that he even has any cards left to keep close to his chest. 😂

Yep, it’s going to be a painful summer transfer window,
But we already knew that.

Please God, make Lewandowski fall from the sky and land on Wenger’s lap… And command him to sign him! 😂
( just incase the dumb 🙊🙊🙊🙊 still doesn’t get it)

Just think, if the board didn’t buy Welbeck and only loaned him for 12 months like Wenger wanted then Welbroke wouldn’t be here now, maybe that money would have been used to get someone who could actually finish?

Yeah. Getting Welbeck always confused me
That season we needed a Top striker and Wenger was saying we had enough forwards but on the very last day of the transfer window we got Danny who is lower than Giroud on the pecking order

If I remember correctly Wenger was in Rome on the last day, which was very irresponsible.
I still don’t get why being in Rome would make a difference between Selling and Loaning. One would think that Wenger just needs a mobile phone to call London

Well yeah, a little. Seeing as he told us how we tried very hard to get one in and please the fans last season. But now he would contradict that. If he had of said this doesn’t change a thing, we still need someone to rival Giroud. But now it means Walcott will stay, and we have Iwobi Adelaide Ox Joel to scrap for Welbecks wing position. But it didn’t go in that order, we heard Theo was staying before Welbz got injured, and we heard Giroud no1 after another failed season.

Well like I have always said, we can’t win the EPL or UCL as long as Wenger remains our manager. And he has once again proving me right. Even before the transfer window opens he declares a striker who had a 14 game barren run as your top striker? And expect to win the EPL title? Common gimme a break! This man ain’t serious. Well won’t say am surprised, this has been vintage Wenger!

You people are effin hilarious. One minute you’re throwing around the virtues of LC’s phenomenal EPL title win without them having either world class or high priced players. Then next you’re whining about which world class or high priced players we “must” buy in order to win the EPL title…
Fickle, hypocritical, whiney, moany bunch…CTFU

A lot of fans are idiots, you seem to go into that category as well, you do not have to spend the most to get great players.

Good players can come cheap, you saying “let City, United, Chelsea and even Liverpool buy the good players” would seem to indicate that good players MUST cost a fortune as it is in reply to someone saying you don’t have to spend loads, this is not the case as LC have proven.

Elneny didn’t cost us a fortune and he is performing well, I do not care about the price tag, it is the player that matters to me. I do not care if the player costs 50p or £500 million, I hope to see who-ever joins to perform well and help us be better than we currently are, ideally 50p would be best though as I can be proud of us getting a bargain.

ny gunner, we know your in the tank for OG, we get it, as for LC, Vardy scored 25 goals playing the same teams OG scored 16… in OG’s 4 seasons average, 14 gps in the EPL, if you allow your excitement for the guy blur your ability to look simply at the numbers, than fine. fact is, he went 15 matches w/out a goal, if you EVER expect to win a title, then you need a bit more consistency.

@NYGunner
stop being such a plumb all your life ffs even the most moronic football fan can see that LC winning the premier league this season was a million to one fluke that really wont happen again god it really comes across that you are a secret spud whith some of the statements you come out with.
Like as not for one season out of 25 the money talks adage didnt ring true are you really thinking that next season it will be the same?
AND your argument holds no water for the simple fact that Wenger has spent nowhere near as much as chelski or Man city and yet HE STILL couldnt win the epl so which is it to be spend no money and win or spend all the money and win?
Strikes me that with the current squad we couldnt win a race with a one legged donkey and IF all the othet top tier clubs hadnt had thier heads up thier arses this season we wouldn’t even be in the champions league play offs let alone second.
Stop being such a contrary oaf and realize that for the money the fans pay and the cash the club has to spend we SHOULD be competing at a far higher level over a period of seasons NOT scrambling for fourth spot each year apart from this season when everybody was off thier game.
Only one person to blame for NOT getting the quality in regardless of price and that Wenger!!!!

Don’t worry fans..Giroud will score 51 goals in all competitions next season..Louis Walcott will be visited in the night by a witch who will bestow the spell of career resurrection upon him allowing him to finally fulfill his vast potential and score even more goals than Lionel Giroud.. And the striker bought to replace Welbeck will go straight into the treatment room where he will stay until called upon in the champions league final to score the winning goal after Giroud and Walcott are strangely substituted by Wenger …when he is struck down by a fit of realization that Arsenal are actually going to win something worthwhile….A scenario he hasn’t faced for years.

There is little doubt to me that Wenger rates Giroud higher than nearly any other Arsenal fan of ex-Arsenal player or pundit. We all know Wenger is stubborn.

On the other hand let’s be fair and give him until the Euro’s start. Right now we have only had the “benefit” of falls rumors and interpretation of what Wenger has said and might or might not mean.

He should prove he has learned from the past by not waiting to sign a big name player or players at the last moment of the transfer window but instead he should sing them in the next few weeks . If he signs a few solid players in the next few weeks we can dream he has learned at least that bit about football.

If he also signs a quality striker that much the better but don’t expect it, never mind how obvious is it that we will not win the CL or PL with Giroud.